Overuse
by war hippy fatigues
Summary: Max gets a strange power and learns of its consequences.


I might turn this into a full fledged story if I get the inspiration for it.

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At first, Max didn't notice anything wrong after she had suddenly gained the ability to turn back time. It was a blessing in many ways, as it let her save the life of a girl who turned out to be her old friend, and let her make a positive impression on other people by fixing many little problems here and there. After all, who wouldn't want the power to go back and fix their mistakes?

When she woke up the next day, something wasn't quite right. Someone had drawn a picture of the butterfly she had taken a picture of yesterday on the ceiling of her dorm room. The picture wasn't there when she had fallen asleep. But who could have managed to do that without waking her up?

Walking over to her little fridge, she saw that all of the food in there had gone rotten. It had been fresh last night. She could only assume that the changes had something to do with her new time travel powers. She decided to stop using them, except for emergencies.

But the next day proved to be quite taxing anyway. First she had to rescue Chloe from being killed by her own misaimed shots, and then she had to rescue her from a train. Then, after that, she had to turn back time even further in an attempt to save Kate from killing herself. The experiences had left her so shaken that she didn't even think of what would happen to her room when she woke up.

The next morning was worse. A dripping sound woke Max up instead of her alarm, which came from a collection of rusted pipes that had burst out from one of the walls. A dark reddish brown liquid was leaking from them, which could have been sewage, old blood, or something else that was nasty. The smell of it certainly wasn't inviting. All of her clothes looked like they had been soaked in the stuff from the pipes, for they were also the color of old rust, and they felt cracked and sharp to the touch. None of the electrical outlets worked.

At this, Max resolved to have Samuel take a look at the room. But he didn't see anything that Max was seeing, for he shrugged his shoulders and said that the room looked fine to him.

And Chloe still insisted that Max put her powers to good use, since she was on the hunt for her lost friend and wouldn't take no for an answer. Max eventually caved in, on the condition that Chloe would let her stay at her place instead of at the dorms.

After another period of rewinding time to get into a drug dealer's RV, Max was sure she went to sleep in Chloe's house. But she woke up in her dorm room. It had changed again. Now there were dark brown things that rose from the floor and down from the ceiling. They were like stalactites, but they were shaped like organs. One was like a solitary lung, covered in darker spots like it belonged to a smoker. Another was like a heavy drinker's liver. There was even a set of male genitals. When Max looked away from them, they seemed to momentarily shudder, and something foul would drip from them.

Again, Max went to Samuel. Again, he couldn't find anything wrong with the room.

Chloe, too, was confused. She claimed that Max had gotten restless in the middle of the night and returned to the dorms of her own volition. But Max could remember no such thing happening.

Their troubles were soon forgotten when they got to the bottom of the plot behind Rachel's death. After finding out who Nathan's next victim was, they rushed off to a party, making heavy use of Max's power to warn Victoria of her potential fate.

Things didn't end up well. They were lured off to Rachel's body, and then attacked. Max remembered the face of Mr Jefferson staring at her, a syringe in his hand...

But Max didn't wake up in the bunker with the dark room and the disturbing photographs. She woke up her dorm room.

Part of the floor appeared to have collapsed. But the hole there didn't lead to the floor below. It instead showed what seemed to be an infinite pit of darkness, for pointing a flashlight into it revealed nothing at all. It was partially covered by a sharp, rusted piece of metal grating that looked like it could snap if an ant walked on it.

Max feared what had become of her room, but she feared for her friends more. Quickly, she notified the police and had them storm the bunker. With judicious and extensive use of her powers, Mr Jefferson was killed without taking any hostages, and the day was saved. Max and the others were rushed off to a hospital, where they could fall asleep in peace...

But Max woke in her dorm room.

Now, the windows had been completely covered with cement. Max's phone no longer work when she tried to call or text anyone, complaining that a network could not be found. The landline was dead. Worst of all was the door outside, which had been completely covered with heavy metal chains from the inside. Max had no hope of opening it, and no one outside responded when she called and pleaded for help.

When Max finally gave up trying to alert others of her plight, she looked up and noticed a strange message on her door, that looked like it had been written in blood.

 _Don't go out!_

 _Mr Jefferson_


End file.
